The feast was called for 2am, when everyone was so tired that it was sleep, not food, they craved the most. The waiters, wearing tuxedos of limpid green and cummerbunds of pumpkin, marched in formation, carrying the foods the hostess had chosen, all aligned on silver trays in shapes of figure eights and triangles, instead of the standard ovals.

The first platters bore the soups and rolls: sweet twists of dough browned lightly at the curves, poppy seed breadsticks and sesame seed kaisers; crisp toasts and pumpernickels and pita breads like skullcaps. The soups were green pea, the same colour as the waiters' jackets, and another pot held a pink chowder, lumpy with clams and sprinkled with fine paprika. Behind that cauldron sat another, filled with overspiced minestrone, crammed so full of meat and vegetables that it was hardly fluid. Finally, a cold potato soup, a vichyssoise, white and translucent, settling beside its steaming cousins.

More >>